Consumer Reports Says Ford Overstating Some New Model
MPG

Yonkers, NY December 7, 2012; Consumer Reports said that Ford has
been making some eye-opening claims about the fuel economy of the
redesigned 2013 Fusion Hybrid sedan and new C-Max Hybrid wagon: "47 city/47
highway/47 combined mpg." After running both vehicles through Consumer
Reports real-world tests, CR’s engineers have gotten very good
results. But they are far below Ford's ambitious triple-47 figures.

In Consumer Reports tests, the Fusion Hybrid delivered 39 mpg
overall and 35 and 41 in city and highway conditions, respectively. For the
C-Max Hybrid, we got 37 mpg overall, with 35 and 38 for city and highway.
These two vehicles have the largest discrepancy between our overall-mpg
results and the estimates published by the EPA that we've seen among any
current models

EPA fuel-economy estimates are the result of testing on a dynamometer. It's worth noting that automakers mostly self-certify their cars. Then, the EPA spot-checks about 15 percent of them with its own tests in a lab. We have reported our fuel-economy results to the EPA.

Consumer Reports said that they not alone in these findings. Some Fusion Hybrid and C-Max Hybrid owners have reported fuel economy below the EPA estimates and other media outlets have experienced a similar shortfall.